Rolling mill layout



Feb. 9, 1932. J R GEORGE 7 1,844,118

ROLLING MILL LAYOUT Filed Sept. 26. 1929 Inventor Jzao-ma R. CMZORQQ/ By %%ZZW%% fitter-neg Patented Feb. 9, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE JEROME R. GEORGE, OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR T MORGAN CON- STRUCTION COMPANY, OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS,

' massncnusnrrs A CORPORATION OF ROLLING Mini; LAYOUT Application filed September 26, 1929. Serial No. 395,361.

The present invention relates in general to rolling mills. More particularly, the invention resides in a novel and useful combination and arrangement of rolling mill apparatus, which adapts itself most advantageously to the production, as required, of rods or of merchant bar, and by which the utmost selectivity of disposal in the handling of either or both of these rolled products, is obtained.

7 Other and further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description thereof, reference being had in this connection to the accompanying single figure of drawing, hich is a 35 diagrammatic plan view of a rolling mill layout in accordance with my invention.

Referring to said drawings, I have shown,

by way of example, a plurality of independently driven stands of reducing rolls 1, 2, 3

2 and 4, in the well-known staggered arrange ment, to which the approach of the stock undergoing reduction, from the roughing mill, not shown, is in the direction of the arrow A. In its passage through the rolls 1, 2, 3, 4, the

stockis caused, by the use of suitable repeater guides, to follow the path indicated by the broken lines 5, 5,-with provision in the usual way for the formation between said rolls, of overfeed loops, as indicated at 5.

It is a common requirement that the same rolling mill apparatus be usable for the production of rods, or for the production of merchant bar, depending upon the trade demand. In other words, the rolling of these two products, up to a certain point, is substantially identical; beyond this point, if rods are to be produced, additional finishing rolling is of course required, but if merchant bar is the product desired, no further rolling is necessary. In accordance with this situation, I

make the final stand of rolls 4 of the train of rolls 1, 2, 3, 4, the finishing rolls for merchant bar, and I arrange beyond the rolls 4 and in line with the delivery therefrom, a suitable runout 6 by which said finished merchant bar,

as delivered from the stand of rolls 4 may be conveyed longitudinally to one or the other of a pair of cooling beds 7 and 8. Or, if desired, said merchant bar, if it is to be coiled, may be 59 diverted laterally to one side of the runout 6,

for delivery to conveniently disposed reels 9, 9, the latter preferably being reels of the usual pouring type, each in the form of a rotary table providing two series of concentric pins between which the moving stock is delivered; in such a reel, the rotation of the table can be depended upon to pull out the last end of the bar, and complete the reeling operation, even after said last end has passed beyond the final stand of reducing rolls 4. The merchant bar so coiled on one or the other of the pouring reels 9, 9 can then be handled in the usual way on a suitable conveyor 10 leading from said reels. v 4 a For the production of rods, Ireplace the merchant bar finishing rolls of stand 4 with rolls having a pass suited to the intermediate rolling of rods; it is necessary of courseto supplement the rolling accomplished by. this intermediate rod-rolling train 1, 2, 3, 4, with sisting of a plurality of alined closely-arranged stands of rolls 11, 11, having a common driving motor 12 and arranged in parallel relation to the runout 6, on the opposite side thereof from the merchant bar coiling reels 9, 9. The delivery of the stock to the rod-finishing train of rolls 11, 11, may be secured by curved trough or guide 13, which preferably makes provision either for the formation of an over-feed loop 14, substantially in accordance with Edwards Patent No. 1,290,942, January 14, 1919, or an under-feed loop 15, substantially in accordance with George Patent No. 1,752,841, April 1, 1930, or both.

The finishing train of rolls 11, 11, as will be understood, procures the reduction of the stock to the desired rod size, and the stock so finished, and in readiness for coiling, may be delivered in the usual manner to any one of a plurality of reels 16, 16, preferably of the so-called laying type wherein the stock is laid in coil formation by the rotation of a downwardly curved tubular delivery arm; this mode of reel operation is suited to the coiling of rods, because the high velocity at which the latter-are delivered makes it unnecessary for the reel to pull through the last ends of the rods, after they leave the finishingrolls 11. Theusualprovisionismade for transferring the coils or bundles to suitable flat conveyors 17, .17. If desired, any of the finished rod stock as delivered by the rolls 11, 11 can be diverted, through a suitable guide 18, to the runout 6, whereby said stock can be deposited, uncoiled, on one or the other of the cooling beds 7 and 8.

By the arrangement of apparatus discribed above, the merchant bar as finished in the roll stand 4, can be delivered either to the cooling beds 7, 8 or to the reels 9, 9, and both of these receiving instrumentalities are placed to the best advantage with respect to the finishing stand. There is a distinct ad-' vantage in using a separate set of reels 9, 9 for the merchant bar, as the reeling of such product on the reels that serve also for rodreeling involves a reel location which is highly disadvantageous, from the standpoint of delivering the merchant bar thereto from the finishing stand 4. Obviously, when the mill is rolling merchant bar, the rod finishing train of rolls 11, 11 can be completely shut down, giving opportunity, without any interruption in the production of the mill, for these rolls to be changed or replaced, as desired. The selective delivery of the rod mill products, either to the reels 16', 16 or to the cooling beds 7, 8 adapts this rolling mill layout, in respect of said last mentioned delivery to the cooling beds, to a large tonnage production of relatively small sections that do not require the same accuracy of finish as merchant rounds or squares,such for instance a. concrete reinforcing bars in the smaller sizes. The high speeds of the finishing stands 11, 11 give the mill a capacity for such production much higher than that attainable with the regular merchant bar finishing operations.

I claim:

1. In a rolling mill, the combination with a roll stand adaptable, interchangeably, to the finish rolling of merchant bars or the intermediate rolling of rods, of a cooling bed substantially in the line of delivery from said interchangeable roll stand, a reeling device for merchant bar at one side of said line of delivery and a plurality of continuously arranged rod finishing roll stands at the other side of said line of delivery, said last-mentioner roll stands being driven independently of said first-mentioned interchangeable roll stand, and the product of the latter being selectively deliverable either to said cooling bed or to said reeling device or to saidcontinuously arranged stands of rolls.

2. In a rolling mill, the combination with a finishing roll stand adaptable, interchangeably, to the finish rolling of merchant bars or the intermediate rolling of rods, of a cooling bed substantially. in the line of delivery from said interchangeable roll stand, a reeling device for merchant bar at'one side of said line of delivery and a plurality of continuously arranged rod finishing roll stands at the other side of said line of delivery, said 3. In a rolling mill, the combination with a roll stand adaptable, interchangeably, to the finish rolling of merchant bars or the intermediate rolling of rods, of a cooling bed substantially in the line of delivery from said interchangeable roll stand, a reelingdevice to which merchant bar is deliverable by a branch from said line of delivery, and a plurality of continuously arranged rod finishing roll stands to which the rolled stock is deliverable by another branch from said line of delivery, said last-mentioned roll stands being driven independently of said first-mentioned interchangeable roll stand, and the product of the latter being selectively deliverable either to said cooling bed or to said reeling device or to said continuously arranged stands of rolls, and a plurality of reeling devices, independent of the first-mentioned reeling device for merchant bar, to receive the rolled product of said continuously arranged stands of rolls.

4. In a rolling mill, the combination with a non-continuous train of rolls for the production of merchant bar, of means substantially in the line of delivery from the finishing end of said train for procuring selectively the reeling of said product or its delivery to a cooling bed, a continuously arranged-train of rod finishing roll stands offset from the line of delivery of said non-continuous roll train, means for diverting the product of said noncontinuous roll train from its line of delivery, to subject it to the rolling action of said continuous train of rolls, with provision for loop formation between said two trains of rolls, in the event of over-feed or underfeed of the stock, and means for procuring selectively, either the reeling ofthe rolled product delivered by said continuously arranged train of rolls, or its return to the line of delivery of said non-continuous train of rolls.

5. A rolling mill layout, comprising atrain of reducing roll stands for the production of merchant bar, a runout for said merchant bar from the last of the stands of said train, said last stand being operablealso for the intermediate rolling of rods, a plurality of continuous rod-finishing roll stands on one side of said runout', to receive interme diately-rolled rod material from said last stand of the reducing roll train, and a reeling device on the other side of said runout to receive material finished in said last stand of the reducing roll train.

JEROME R. GEORGE. 

